Our Program

According to the 2005 Iowa School Needs Survey, Iowa superintendents listed the following issues as 2 of the top 5 priorities to enhance the education of Iowa students :

• Provide more professional development opportunities.
• Support for early intervention programs, “at risk” students, and English Language Learners.

Program RELEVANCE (Reaching English Language Educators Via Advanced Networked Collegiate Education) is purposefully designed to result in significant improvement in the academic achievement of English Language Learners (ELL) by systematically changing the way ELL students are taught and the way teachers in content area classrooms are prepared to address the unique needs of this at-risk population in Iowa.

Program RELEVANCE offers to provide teachers with a high qualification in the diverse cultural and linguistic needs of K-12 ELL students through an innovative distance education program that provides a Master of Arts degree with the ESL (K-12) endorsement coursework built-in.